TRAI Recommends Full Mobile Number Portability In Six Months- One Nation, One Number.

Six months from now, no matter what telecom circle you’re relocating to or what service provider you choose, you’ll still be able to retain your old mobile phone number. The nationwide Mobile Number Portability (MNP) implemented by Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) addresses a huge issue, and the biggest plus- no more roaming charges while traveling! As of now, the mobile number portability is available to a subscriber only within his service area.

Telecom operators and service providers are given six month’s time to implement full MNP. TRAI stated the following in its recommendation- “Implementation of full MNP would therefore mean acceptance of a porting request by the recipient operator from a mobile number belonging to any of the service areas (LSA) of the country, irrespective of the fact that the LSA from where the subscriber is porting his mobile number and the LSA to which he wants to port his number belong to the same or different MNP zones.” The regulator has even recommended that Department of Telecom (DoT) carries out the required changes in the existing MNP service license to aid full MNP or inter-service area porting. The regulator added that DoT may consider operators’ request to reduce acceptance testing fee to one-fourth of the present fee.

As most service providers believed that their revenue shall plummet with STD rates being at par with the local calling rates, TRAI stated that “the onus should lie on the calling party to bear the STD charges, if applicable.” In the past, operators have repeatedly hammered that they’d be needing money to the tunes of USD 10 million to develop the facilitating structure for nationwide MNP. This service would help pan-India operators expand their customer base, compared to the operators who’ve not yet have made their presence felt across all Indian states. Industry data suggests that free roaming is to benefit more than 12 percent of mobile subscribers, but the operators margin shall be affected as they’ll have to shell out the national long-distance price.